There has been an explosive growth of financial investment tools, linked for the most part with the corresponding need to assess and manage a plurality of assets and liabilities in a coherent manner. This need exists across the spectrum; not only by the more experienced investor, but also by the younger, newer investor now expected to manage his own retirement and savings needs. Indeed, it is becoming clearer that individuals will be shouldering a larger portion of their future obligations in terms of health and retirement. This future responsibility can only be adequately addressed by reliance on a variety of investment and debt vehicles.
As the complexities of central asset management have grown, various systems have been developed to support individual management of capital assets. There has been a corresponding growth in the software systems capable of handling the vast amounts of transactional data associated with individual asset and debt management. Of these, the single most versatile and best known central asset management system is the Cash Management Account.RTM., known as the CMA.RTM. brokerage account, offered by the assignee of the present invention. The CMA.RTM. account came into existence several years ago, offering account holders the ability to integrate a brokerage account with a debit card and check writing capabilities, while providing extensive computer automated services, such as sweeping idle funds into short term investment accounts (money markets).
The original CMA.RTM. account system represented a breakthrough in data processing as it allowed precise account management of both debt and asset obligations in an efficient integrated manner. The software underlying the CMA.RTM. accounts permitting its successful operation is a subject of four separate patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,346,442 to Musmanno; 4,376,978 to Musmanno; 4,597,046 to Musmanno, et al.; and 4,774,663 to Musmanno, et al.
These four patents are hereby incorporated by reference.
With the explosive growth of the CMA.RTM. account and other central asset management offerings, the amount and complexity of data processing has expanded at an astronomical rate. As more financial institutions entered the field with central asset management accounts of their own design, many attempts were made to differentiate the various offerings by adding features or account flexibility. These alterations reflect expressions too numerous to even outline here; however, the original central asset management account as envisioned a decade ago has transcended to a new plane. By doing so, the overall data processing approach undertaken with the original product had to be revisited. The expanded services and integration with other brokerage activities as processed within the original data processing framework created an unwieldy and difficult mechanism for managing the new systems. A reevaluation highlighted an opportunity to add system flexibility to central asset management processing by undertaking the data processing in a fundamentally different manner. Several advances were realized in this effort and represent the focus of the instant application for patent.